Humanity's last hope
by Cissmoll
Summary: "Mikasa was flying over the rooftops, faster than she'd ever flown before. She zigzagged between the titans, slashing neck after neck, never stopping for even a second. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel. Her body and soul had gone completely numb, and the only thing left inside her was one single thought, repeating itself over and over: I have to protect them." One-shot.


Mikasa was flying over the rooftops, faster than she'd ever flown before. She zigzagged between the titans, slashing neck after neck, never stopping for even a second. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel. Her body and soul had gone completely numb, and the only thing left inside her was one single thought, repeating itself over and over: _I have to protect them._

Just like always, the attack came out of nowhere. This time, it wasn't because of any human titans. This time, the attack came from mother Earth herself.  
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a wall is only as strong as its weakest component. For generations the walls had provided humanity with safety and comfort, standing tall against the titan threat. Somehow, humanity had repressed the fact that nothing holds forever. Not even thick walls of stone.  
The earthquake wasn't even that strong. They'd all lived through worse quakes before, some of them strong enough to break windowpanes and make roofs fall in. This one only made a few flowerpots fall off their windowsills and turned over a few chairs… and made a part of Wall Rose collapse.  
The sound of stones tumbling to the ground could be heard from several miles away. When the earth finally stopped trembling, Wall Rose was flaunting a brand-new opening; a wide crevice running all the way from the ground to the top. Right outside waited hundreds of titans, as if they all knew that today was the day mother Earth would try to kill off all the whole human kind. Somehow, the titans always knew where to be – and when to be there – to cause as much death and destruction as possible.

Another scream. More blood. _I have to protect them. _Mikasa's 3DMG was working at its top speed, spewing gas everywhere, but it still wasn't fast enough. She anchored the hooks of her gear in the ear of a fifteen-meter class and slashed the necks of three nine-meters while the wires pulled her up in the air. The fifteen-meter tried to grab her, but she was already long gone, flying back the way she came from.  
The 3DMG was like an extension of her body, her own artificial wings. They liberated her. They made her invincible. Her red scarf fluttered behind her as she gracefully sailed through the air, raven hair dancing in the wind. She was an army of one, more lethal than hundreds of soldiers combined, but she still wasn't enough. _I have to protect them. _

The whole Scouting Legion had been called in to fight off the titans. No one had said it out loud, but they'd all known that if they didn't reclaim the ground inside Wall Rose, humanity would fall, once and for all. They had to seal the hole at all costs. Once again, they'd been forced put the fate of their whole race in the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy.  
Just like in the battle of Trost, Eren had been ordered to shift into his titan form and block the gaping hole with another giant rock. This time, he'd succeeded on his first try. Hundreds of titans had already made it through the wall by then, but the rock had effectively cut off the stream of new titans. The human titan had roared in triumph, and moments later Eren had emerged from its neck. A sigh of relief had spread through the army. They'd already lost many soldiers while keeping the titans away from Eren, but at least their deaths hadn't been in vain.  
But that wasn't the end of it. It was only the beginning.

Eren had been one of the first ones to go. He'd taken just a second too long to celebrate the victory, and hadn't seen the fifteen-meter coming up from behind him. Mikasa had seen it all happen. She'd screamed at the top of her lungs, slaughtering titans left and right to get to him, but she'd been too late to save him.  
She would always the sound of ugly yellow teeth breaking her brother's spinal cord.

Eren's body was lying on the ground close to the wall. His beautiful eyes were now closed forever, and the lower part of his body was gone. His once green cape was now as red as Mikasa's scarf, draped around him like a blanket. A nine-meter titan crouched down next to him, its intentions clear as day. Mikasa was on it just a few seconds later, anchoring the 3DMG hooks on a nearby roof. The titan just looked at her with its lifeless eyes as it reached out to pick up Eren's body.  
"You won't get him!" Mikasa roared as she chopped off its head.  
The pain inside her was excruciating. She couldn't even think about letting a titan devour the only thing left of her beloved brother, even if his soul had passed on to a hopefully better place. She decided she would protect it, no matter what. Even if she'd have to give her life.

Things would have been easier if it had been just Eren. Protecting one body from titans wasn't a problem, not for Mikasa. But Eren had just been the first of many.  
Minutes later, Armin fell from the sky because of a 3DMG malfunction. Mikasa's task had immediately become considerably more difficult, since Armin had crash-landed on a roof about thirty meters from Eren's body. Mikasa had landed next to him seconds later, trying desperately to wake him up even though his neck was clearly broken.  
She'd released a high-pitched scream of true sorrow over her lost childhood friends. And then, she'd gone numb. _I will protect their bodies. The titans will not get them. I will protect them. _

A titan was closing in on Armin's body again. Mikasa slayed it. She heard a familiar scream in the distance and turned towards it. Far away, Sasha was stuck in the grip of a fifteen-meter, which was bringing her closer and closer to its grinning mouth. Mikasa managed to slit its neck before it could eat Sasha up, but it was already too late to save her life. The titan's careless hand had already crushed her to death.

Mikasa was always too late, always too slow. Jean and Connie were swallowed whole. Hanji and Erwin were smashed against the wall. Christa, sweet and innocent little Christa, sacrificed herself to save a surrounded Ymir from getting hit by a fifteen-meter, but Ymir was then smashed to the ground anyway. Their bodies were now lying right next to each other, Ymir holding Christa's tiny hand against her chest. Mikasa felt a distant relief through her numbness. In their last moments, they'd at least had each other.  
It came as a surprise how much she actually cared about all of these people. When had that happened? When had she stopped caring about Eren and Armin exclusively, and let all of these people into her heart? Sasha and her potatoes, Jean and his cocky attitude, Hanji and her mad laughter… Somehow, Mikasa had grown to love all of them.

Eventually, she ran out of titans to kill. She sat down next to Eren's body, her legs too tired to carry her any longer. She couldn't find a single surviving human being. Not a single one. She was all alone.  
Many of her bones were broken, and she was bleeding from more places than she could count. A deep wound on her left thigh seemed to be the worst of them, almost deep enough to break the femoral artery. _Maybe I should just lay here and just wait for me to bleed to death, _she thought. _It shouldn't take that long.  
_A short black-haired man turned around the corner of a building. Mikasa barely noticed it. She didn't really care.  
"Ackerman…?" the Lance Corporal Levi asked incredulously. "You're… alive?" He started to limp towards her, his leg clearly not working properly. Mikasa kept staring blankly into thin air.  
Levi crouched down in front of her, grabbing her shoulders. "Ackerman? Ackerman! Snap out of it, you little brat," he yelled, shaking her. "Please, Ackerman… Mikasa." The use of her first name made her meet his gaze. His black eyes were filled with a pain matching hers. He gently her face in his hands and leaned his forehead against hers. "We have to leave, Mikasa. We can't stay here."  
"I'm not leaving him," Mikasa whispered, her voice broken from all the screaming. "I'm not leaving any of them."  
"We'll come back later. You need medical care, or you'll bleed to death." Levi ripped off some fabric of his white shirt and started to wind it around her thigh, making a makeshift bandage. Mikasa just looked at him, her dark eyes displaying her thoughts clearly: _Why should I care? _  
"Because humanity needs you." He took her hands in his and stood up, pulling her up with him. "_I _need you."  
Mikasa knew he was right. She looked at Eren's body again, and then turned away, tears falling from her eyes. Yes, she knew she had to leave, but it was still the most painful thing she'd ever had to do.  
"Are… are we really…?" Mikasa couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.  
"Yes. We're the last ones," Levi answered monotonically. His voice sounded just as neutral as always, but Mikasa knew how much he hurt on the inside. She knew, because she was feeling exactly the same.  
"So there's just…?"  
"There's just you and me now."

That day, humanity once again defeated the titans, but at a great cost. Perhaps the greatest loss in human history.  
Levi and Mikasa walked slowly in silence towards the nearest city, leaning heavily on each other. They were now not only humanity's strongest soldiers, but were also burdened with a new, even heavier responsibility.  
They were now humanity's last hope.


End file.
